


eleven minutes past three

by myvoidedeyes



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: As in they don't, Blood and Gore (mentioned), Boys Kissing, Character Study, Emotional Constipation, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Jaytim - Freeform, Kissing, M/M, Mentions of Violence, Metaphors, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Past Character Death, Repercussions of Bruce Wayne's Terrible Parenting, Requited Love, Smoking, Swearing, That's right, They're just terrible at communcating, Tim overthinks everything, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, Vigilantism, because that's one thing i have in common with these nerds, because they're idiots, major character death (mentioned), no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-06 23:54:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19073248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myvoidedeyes/pseuds/myvoidedeyes
Summary: "He had no idea what was going on—in that moment or with Jason at all. He wanted to ask, ‘What the hell is happening here?’ but he didn’t. Words—talking about their lives, their feelings—just wasn’t something they did, and this didn’t seem like the time to change that. So, instead, Tim just pressed his wind-chapped lips to Jason’s own, and just like that they were kissing"set in in a world where tim and jason share a fire escape post-patrol in the early hours of the morning, and tim overthinks everything until he doesn't





	eleven minutes past three

            In the distance, red and blue lights flashed.

            His ribs throbbed from being kicked, a no-doubt impressive bruise inevitably blooming under his skin—under his armour. The rest of his body ached with bruises and exhaustion, and he could feel every place where he pressed into the rusted-out fire escape beneath him.

            It was loud, in that way cities were always loud, even in the dead of night—or, in this case, the first dregs of morning—with the honking of horns and occasional revved engines. There were the voices of drunken nightwalkers and the saccharine chatter of the working girls, and the constant thrum that came with millions of people occupying a relatively small space.

            But it was the closest to peaceful things ever got in that city.

            Maybe that was why he stayed, sitting there on that fourth-floor fire escape, staring at the brick of the adjacent apartment building as the night toiled on around him. Why he stayed, even though he had a meeting in less than four hours and really should have been trying to get some sleep.

            That, and because of Jason’s slouching figure beside him, exhaling streams of cigarette smoke that he didn’t cough over, but still had him crinkling his nose in distaste.

            After all, sharing the fire escape post-patrol—usually bleeding; rarely not—was the closest the two of them had come to friendly in…ever. Usually, they didn’t talk, didn’t interact; they just existed in the same space—shared it—intermittently brushing shoulders or arms or thighs in an area whose square footage wasn’t quite large enough for the two of them. And it felt a little like stepping out of time and settling into the kind of nebulousness that often came with times like three am.

            The routine of it had started after he had dumped Jason on the fire escape one night, a dead weight from blood loss and concussion. They’d gone inside, climbing in the window shortly thereafter, but, once Jason was bandaged and medicated, Jason had fumbled his way back out for a cigarette and, for some reason, instead of leaving, Tim joined him.

            How it became a pattern was something lost to time and emotional repression, but, regardless, together was how they ended every night. Jason would still smoke and Tim would dangle his feet through the railing slats, and they’d listen to the girls laugh and _click-clack_ across the pavement, and it was the closest thing to normal that had ever existed between the two of them.

            In the present, Jason stubbed out his cigarette, leaning forward to brace his arms on the ill-spaced railing. In an odd kind of way, he looked like he belonged. Like he fit right in with the rusted metal, the grimy brick, and the tired, haphazard quality that Crime Alley boasted. Even his blunt features and almost perpetually narrowed eyes seemed to reflect the overt nature of the neighbourhood: it didn’t try to hide what it is and neither did Jason.

He’d always been like that, even when he was a kid swinging through Gotham dressed like a stoplight and Tim had watched him through a camera lens. Jason wore his emotions on his face, in the broken skin in the grooves of his knuckles, and even when he was, he could never be something he wasn’t. Not really.

He was jolted out of his thoughts when Jason jabbed him in the cheek accompanying it with a hoarse, “You die on me, replacement?” like he always did when Tim was too still for too long.

It happened often enough that he just replied, “Not yet.”

Jason chuckled, the sound cracking in places from a dry throat and the recent smoke, dragging a hand through his hair—contrasting pale on dark—and leaned in to bump Tim with his shoulder, the feeling dulled between two sets of armour and a beat-to-hell leather jacket. And, instead of pulling away, Jason just stayed there, settling into him so they were pressed together: shoulder-to-shoulder, side-to-side, hip-to-hip.

         The post-midnight silence fell over them again, a car passing on the street. It’s headlights cast flickering shadows down the alleyway for a moment, throwing its hollows and angles into strange relief.

         It took longer than he’d like to admit for Tim to realize Jason was still looking at him, so used to the way his skin prickled in the other’s presence that he’d started to become accustomed to the sensation. When he did notice, catching the tilt and flash of skin in his periphery, he turned, a question on his tongue and in his eyes.

         The words died, withering along his taste buds, as he met Jason’s stare, those strangely kaleidoscopic eyes—the ones Tim could never quantify and frustrated him endlessly—fixed so fiercely on him that he was 50-50 on getting punched, though he wasn’t sure what he’d done to warrant it.

         They were so close that he could feel Jason’s breath fanning lightly across his face: hot and smelling of chemicals and nicotine.

         He had no idea what was going on—in that moment or with Jason at all. He wanted to ask, ‘What the hell is happening here?’ but he didn’t. Words—talking about their lives, their feelings—just wasn’t something they did, and this didn’t seem like the time to change that.

So, instead, Tim made what was arguably one of the most impulsive decisions in his life—fuelled entirely by exhaustion and three am delirium and a crush he thought had died with Jason—and pressed his wind-chapped lips to Jason’s own, and just like that they were kissing.

There was a moment, hung over the abyss of uncertainty, where the nighttime sounds were sucked into the vacuum, and they were both so still that it couldn’t have been anything but a mistake. Then there were hands winding into his hair, tugging at its length, and he was being kissed with such an intensity that everything else seemed liquefy and slide out from under him.

Jason’s mouth was warm, so warm that Tim realized for the first time that he was cold, and he tasted like an ashtray. But all Tim could think was, “Holy shit, I’m kissing Jason Todd,” like he was still eleven years old and in love with Robin—the one with the scarred knuckles and wide smile that he’d’ve followed to the ends of the earth. And, in it’s own weird way, it was just… _right_.

They kissed until Tim forgot what it felt like to have air in his lungs, and then for a while longer. When he finally pulled away, feeling like his lungs might burst in protest, they were still so close they were stealing one another’s oxygen as both they tried to even out their breathing. For a long moment, the only sound between them was collective soft panting; occasionally drowned out by a high, fake laugh echoing from the street corner.

Then, voice now rough for a different reason, Jason chuckled into the silence.

         “Shit, you sure you’re not dead, pretender? You feel like a corpse.”

         In response, Tim fixed Jason with an unimpressed look and jabbed him in the side. Jason squirmed away from him, laughing again, before wrapping his hands around Tim’s wrists and leaning down to kiss him again; licking along the seam Tim’s mouth and then in, so deep that he was sure that he’d never get the lingering taste of cigarette’s out again.

It was three am, his ribs hurt, and he could hear sirens wailing in the distance. And he wouldn’t trade that moment for anything.

**Author's Note:**

> i started writing this in, like, january, then spent the last six months intermittently chipping away at it and ignoring it, until last week when i figured out how to finish it. it didn't quite turn out how i wanted, given how much time passed between writing it each time, but, all things considered, i think it turned out pretty well.  
> anyway, if you enjoyed whatever the hell this is, please consider leaving a kudos or even just a comment.i like hearing what my readers have to say b/c, unlike me, they haven't read this until they can recite parts of it off the top of their head
> 
> -void


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